


The Meaning of Masks

by ShadowRen



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Canon, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, F/M, Gen, Minor Armitage Hux/Rose Tico, Redeemed Ben Solo, They love their kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:41:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowRen/pseuds/ShadowRen
Summary: Masks have held a bitter, painful meaning for Ben Solo.His son has a different meaning attached to them.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 17
Kudos: 48
Collections: Reylo Theme Event





	The Meaning of Masks

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot was for the Writing Den's Reylo Theme Event, under the theme 'Masked'. I decided on a canon take to this prompt, exploring how a post-war society may give insights to the people who fought them. Also I wanted fluff of the next-gen kids, so here's the result!

Ben hated masks now.

He didn’t see the sense in wearing them. They unnecessarily narrowed his field of vision, they were bulky, and they made his hair a tangled mess every time. 

At least, that was what he wanted to say. That would actually be a rather normal point in an everyday conversation about the pros and cons of wearing masks. It was what he told other people when they asked him about his mask, the people that only saw that silver and black helmet reflecting the red glow of his lightsaber.

No, that was not what really bothered him about masks. 

Masks reminded him of that helmet. Of his past. Of the voices that echoed within it, now blessedly quiet after Palpatine’s defeat. Things he had done and not done, people he had killed. His father’s face always came to mind, back on that bridge in Starkiller Base. That bit was somewhat illogical. He hadn’t worn his mask then. 

Masks kept him away from who he truly was. A barrier between himself and the people around him. Back then, he thought of them as a safety barrier, from the people that despised him, hated him, feared him for what he was. Now he understood that it had kept him away from their love and compassion, but it was too late. There were a few who did turn on him in the meantime. For a while, he had turned on himself in anger and fury. 

Indeed, masks have never actually been his friend. Neither was he theirs.

So it truly surprised him when his son took to masks like a Mon Calamari to water. 

Jaden loved stories about the old Clone Wars, and the five-year-old boy had amassed a small collection of toy masks fashioned with the markings of the various clone battalions. Ben learned quickly that the boy preferred the yellow of the 212th Battalion under the command of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, and knew every mask of every clone by heart, rattling off tales of Commander Cody, Wooley and Boil. 

Sometimes it wasn’t clone trooper masks he brought home when returning from the markets of Naboo with Rey. Imperial helmets and familiar First Order masks joined the collection as well. Ben almost had a heart attack the day Jaden got a black TIE pilot helmet. He’d thought for a moment that the visor had been rimmed with metallic grey strips.

With every helmet, Rey always had to soothe him in the solace of their bedroom after putting their son to sleep. She knew what masks meant to him, how he always tried his best not to growl when the little boy ran across the house wearing one of those masks pretending, like so many little boys, to be a brave soldier of old.

As she softly stroked his back, she told him a story. Just one, the same story every time. How she had to wear masks too. First on Jakku, protecting her eyes from the desert sands as she searched for the next ship to scavenge. Then after Starkiller Base, hiding the bond between them, trying so hard to be the Jedi that would save everyone when she really wasn’t and would never be. Masks were a sore topic for her, too.

Both of them knew, however, that masks held one meaning for them, but a different one for Jaden. The boy was a child born in a time of peace, where war was only a thing in history books and bedtime stories. A time where adults avoided talking about it and left the children to make their own interpretations in their made-up games. 

Neither Ben nor Rey wanted to be that type of adult. They wanted Jaden to know someday, that while there might have been bravery, there was so much more pain. But when they saw the joy in Jaden’s eyes and his merry laugh through the helmets, they couldn’t bear to do it. To shatter his joy when what they feared might never come to pass.

One day, Ben realised that they had both underestimated their little boy.

Jaden had been playing with Paige that day, while their parents watched them carefully. Paige’s baby sister Victoire was still a little young at two years old, and slept in the arms of their heavily pregnant mother Rose. The two older children were pretending to be clone troopers on Geonosis, both wearing helmets from the 212th as they whispered battle commands to each other in their made-up secret code.

Ben did not fail to notice how Armitage tensed his shoulders and clenched his fists atop his lap while watching his daughter. The older man struggled with the war too, despite never having worn any masks. No, Ben corrected himself. He may have never worn any physical masks, but he had certainly worn many emotional ones throughout their years in the First Order. Rey and Rose were slightly more relaxed than their husbands, discussing different aspects of childcare so as to not wake little Victoire. 

A shrill cry of pain pulled Ben’s attention back to the other two children. Paige had fallen to the ground, red scrapes marring her knee, and Armitage had already left his seat at the caf table. Ben got up as well but stopped Rey from doing the same with a hand on her shoulder and a nudge through their bond. 

The ginger-haired man muttered something about getting the first-aid kit somewhere in the living room, but as he turned towards Ben to ask for its exact location, Jaden had pulled out a small kit of his own from the pack that had been part of his costume. From it, the young Solo pulled out a bacta patch, peeling off the adhesive layer before laying it neatly over the wound.

As both fathers stared at the boy in wonder, Jaden looked up from his handiwork and tilted his masked head, as if giving them a quizzical look. 

“Soldiers have to heal people too,” he said in his boyish tone, “and the best ones don’t have to kill anybody.”

Ben would later swear that he had never had a wider grin before that moment.

He lifted Jaden up into the air with a whoop of joy, taking off the boy’s mask and hugging him tight while the edges of Armitage’s mouth quirked up. Soon, Paige was asking for the same and her father complied, rubbing their foreheads together the way Ben had often seen the Tico-Hux family do.

When their wives joined them, Ben leaned down to press a kiss to Rey’s forehead, shifting Jaden to one arm and caressing the small bump on Rey’s abdomen with the other. 

Yes, masks had one meaning for Ben Solo. They held a different meaning for Jacen Solo.

And that new meaning gave Ben hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Twitter @ShadowRenWrites for fic updates, mechanical pencil sketches and other random things!


End file.
